ASF France, Partners Hold Human Rights Training For Security Agencies, Media, CSOs
By Our Correspondent
Avocats Sans Frontières France (ASF France), in collaboration with its local partners, the Carmelite Prisoners Interest Organisation (CAPIO) and the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) have organised trainings for security agencies, media and CSOs in Lagos State.
The insightful trainings were on the wings of the “Strengthening the National Actors Capacities and Advocation for Ending Severe Human Rights Violations in Nigeria project” (SAFE), funded by the European Union and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), which is targeted at addressing human rights violations of torture, extra-judicial killings and arbitrary detention.
The training for security agencies on human rights took place on the 24th – 26thof May, 2021.
The 3-day training aimed at bridging the knowledge gap of security agencies on Human Rights laws and standards had in attendance 27 security personnel drawn from the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), Nigerian Army (NA), the Department of State Security (DSS), Nigerian Airforce (NAF), NCDC (Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps), Corrections Service, Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) and Immigrations.
The training for the media and CSOs on the other hand, took place on the 27th – 28th of May, 2021. The 2-day training served as a follow up training for an earlier batch of 20 members of the media and CSOs trained on documentation and reporting of human rights violations in Lagos State in February 2020.
The Country Director of Avocats Sans Frontières France in Nigeria, Mrs. Angela Uwandu Uzoma-Iwuchukwu in one of her contributions during the training highlighted the importance of the media in the promotion and protection of human rights saying “the media when deployed effectively can make people more aware of their rights, expose its violations and focus attention on people and areas in need of the protection of human rights”.
Mr. Adewale Adequate of Lagos Traffic FM, a beneficiary of the training for media and CSOs, at the end of the training said “I must first of all say thanks to the ASF France team for this insightful training. It has been a major source of exposure to the use of media to promote human rights. I believe this will in many ways improve the work that I do”.
The SAFE project is co-funded by the European Union (EU) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and is being implemented by Avocats Sans Frontières France in Nigeria, in partnership with the Nigerian Bar Association and the Carmelite Prisoners’ Interest Organization.
